Heavy industries like steel and cement account for approximately 15% of global emissions. Decarbonizing these products is therefore essential to reaching global and national emissions reduction targets. With this understanding, governments and nongovernmental actors have taken steps to establish emissions benchmarking and reporting for these industries, with the goal of promoting low-carbon products through industrial decarbonization policies. This working paper provides a comparative scan of emissions intensity benchmarks and accounting methodologies for cement and steel emerging globally. 

By summarizing and analyzing key information from existing benchmarks, standards, and policies, the paper aims to help policymakers understand this complex landscape and work toward greater harmonization and interoperability. The rules published by the governments and organizations offer differing emissions intensity thresholds, disparate benchmarking methodologies, and vary significantly in the scope and specificity of their emissions accounting guidance. The range of emissions intensity benchmarks and accounting methodologies can be difficult for buyers and producers of industrial products to navigate and compare. International trade of low-carbon materials may be overly complicated and impede market growth, as businesses purchase or produce less emissions intensive products across different jurisdictions with different emissions benchmarks and accounting rules.  

This working paper serves as a resource for policymakers, private sector actors, and civil society organizations seeking to issue or harmonize standards, benchmarks, or procurement policies.

Key Findings:

  • Product-level emissions accounting and emissions intensity benchmarking are needed for effective industrial decarbonization and trade policy.
  • Governments and organizations are establishing these emissions accounting standards and emissions intensity benchmarks.
  • Promulgated standards and benchmarks vary greatly depending on various country- or sector-specific factors.
  • A patchwork of accounting methodologies for calculating a product’s emissions increases the costs of compliance for businesses, makes comparison challenging, and inhibits market growth for low-carbon products.
  • The increased number of emissions accounting standards calls attention to the need for greater consistency in underlying rules and methods—or interoperability—across these standards.
  • Improving the global standards landscape requires improving data quality, leveraging existing standards, harmonizing methodologies, coordinating across standards to ensure interoperability, and, when viable, converging on benchmarks and thresholds, as well as greater consideration of small-scale producers and nonclimate pollution impacts.